The Kevorkian Conspiracy
by Victoria Hughes
Summary: [indefinite hiatus] As Peter and MJ get closer, Doc Ock escapes from SHIELD's confines and sets out to destroy his own ghosts not the least of which is SpiderMan. Based on the Ultimate SpiderMan comic books.
1. The Old Parker Luck

The Kevorkian Conspiracy

By Vikki

Disclaimer: Spider-Man and all other syndicated characters appearing in this story belong to Marvel Enterprises, Inc. – not me. Although I really, really wouldn't mind if they'd just turn over Spider-Man to me ' ::bats eyelashes:: pretty please? No? Okay, then – I'm not making any money, so please don't sue me, all right?

Prologue: The Old Parker Luck

The wind whipped down the streets of New York City, howling. Thunder rolled ominously in the distance; lightning flashed with a promise of danger. It had been dark for an hour already; what had started as an overly-warm spring day was quickly becoming a stormy night.

Peter Parker had been web-slinging all afternoon, as he was wont to do these days; after being Spider-Man for six months, he was absolutely addicted to his newfound mode of transportation. Not only did it get him around NYC much faster than walking (or even taking a cab) and allow him to spot anything bad happening in his hometown, it was a freeing experience. Grabbing each new web and hoping it would hold his weight was exhilarating, and the wind whipped at his face through the mask, and the people below him, never looking up, seemed so small and not intimidating that Peter could forget about his problems for a while and just imagine he was the only person on Earth who mattered—

Until he saw a disaster and swung into action. Today alone Peter, as Spider-Man, had stopped four muggings, one rape (the rapist would be spending a good, long while in the hospital, much less on Riker's Island), and an out-and-out robbery of an armored car.

However, the afternoon was long over and the late evening was not promising weather very accommodating to a young web-slinger. When Peter had spotted the first flash of lightning he had given up his favorite pastime in favor of walking, as he was not particularly eager to become a fried spider (which he felt was far more likely when he was thirty stories above the ground rather than on foot). After ducking into an alleyway and changing back into his street clothes, which he kept in his backpack, Peter had begun to walk home while the sky steadily darkened and wind picked up and the thunder began to rumble from far away.

Now it was fully dark – the true dark that came with night along with the unnatural dark of a thunderstorm. And Peter was wishing very hard that lightning wasn't threatening, because he'd have been home a lot sooner if he could only web-sling. Hunching his shoulders, he began to walk quickly – just a little too quickly for a normal human, but no one was watching, after all.

Naturally, that was when he heard the shouting coming from an alleyway not too far ahead.

Peter liked being a hero – really, he did – even if he wasn't fully appreciated as one. It was fun at the best of times, drop-dead terrifying at the worst, and most of the time an alleviation of the perpetual weight of guilt that was Uncle Ben's death. But he was getting hungry, the sky was getting angrier by the minute, and he had homework to do.

Still, duty called.

Peter glanced around surreptitiously to see if anyone was paying attention to the boring teenager shuffling down the street, and when he found no one looking his way, he leapt straight up as high as he could – about three stories – and clung to the thirty-story building. He then scuttled up the wall, supporting his weight entirely with his arms (his shoes prevented his toes from aiding his grip), and hauled himself onto the roof. He looked down over the edge and into the alleyway as he began to strip off his clothes to reveal his Spider-Man costume.

At first it looked like a mugging. Three burly men, one with a gun, had one young man up against the wall of the alleyway, and they were being none-too-gentle with him as they rifled his pockets. However, another moment of watching revealed the truth: "You don't got the key! I told you, you gotta have us the key!"

_Extortion_, Peter thought as he kicked off his shoe and began to crawl down the side of the building stealthily, still listening.

"L-look, I'm trying," the young man – _he's probably only a few years older than me, _Peter thought – stuttered, looking harassed and beleaguered. "But-but that l-lab is high s-security!" he blurted, wringing his hands. "I'll have to s-steal it—"

_High security labs?__ And here I was thinking that they're just trying to bust up the local bar . . . crap._

"That's too bad for you," snapped one of the bullies. "We ain't gonna be the ones takin' no heat from the good doctor, kid! We'll hand you right on over, and we'll see how you like how _he_ handles failures!"

_Scary doctor.___

The victim went wild-eyed. "P-please, give me two more days! J-j-just two! I can get it, I swear!"

"You'd damn well better have it, or we'll have the doc quarter you!" hissed one of the burly guys, before he grinned nastily just in time for a lightning flash to illuminate his scarred face. "And just to be sure you remember here's a little present from me to you . . ." he cocked his fist, and the young man ducked, his hands over his head—

_Alrighty__, nothing more to be heard here—_

Peter pushed off of the wall from two stories up and landed neatly on the shoulders of the would-be puncher. "Hi! Mind if I join you guys?"

"Gah!" was all that the puncher said, staggering under the sudden force of additional weight coming down on his shoulders. "Spider-Man!"

"Oh, you _are_ smart," Peter smirked under his mask, jumping back off of him before he could recover and firing webbing at the gun in the hand of one of the extortionists. "You get a gold star for your observational skills today!" He perched on the alleyway wall about fifteen feet up and watched with pleasure as the gang's victim ran from the alleyway in a panic.

"What the hell is this stuff?" asked the gun-toting thug, picking at the webbing now covering his weapon, not even noticing the fleeing man.

"Get him!" shouted the third man, pointing at Spidey as thunder rolled and lightning flashed. The storm was getting closer.

"'Get him'?" Why does everyone say that? Why does anyone even _have_ to say it? As if you're not going to come after me anyway," Peter said conversationally as he seriously considered having a quick fistfight with the three thugs before leaving them wrapped in webbing for the police. God knew they deserved a good whomping. There was another flash of lightning and Peter discarded the idea; without another word, he began to spray them liberally with webbing until all three were hopelessly webbed to the sidewalk.

_Now, a little information._

Hopping down from the wall, Peter jumped to crouch on the stomach of one of the thugs. The thug grunted, waking up from a semi-daze, and began to curse profusely.

"Tsk tsk, such language," Peter admonished before turning serious. "Shut up or I'll dislocate your jaw for you." The man fell silent. "Better. All right, big guy, tell me this – who's this doctor you're working for?"

The man shook his head. "I tell you, he'll kill me."

"Dude, you're going to jail. You don't have to worry about the doc's opinion for a while at least. Mine, though, you gotta worry about," Peter said in his best threatening voice. Cracking his knuckles, though, probably had a lot more to do with the frantic agreement from the thug than his words did.

"Okay, okay, it's Doc Ock! Doctor Octopus!"

_Doc Ock?__ I thought he was in jail._ Peter frowned in confusion and was grateful his mask kept his expressions private. "And what would he want a key to a top secret lab for?"

"I dunno. I swear I dunno," the man babbled. "He says 'get this key', and we go get it, we don't ask why, you know – but we're in hot water unless—"

"You're already in hot water, buddy. Where's this lab you're getting the key to?"

"Uh, OsCorp. It's an OsCorp chemical lab, that's all I know—"

_OsCorp__ '?_ "Lay off the caffeine, will you? You sound like the Energizer Bunny. Get some sleep." With that, Peter cracked the man's head against the pavement hard enough to knock him out.

It was a simple matter to begin the climb back upwards toward his clothes, but Peter's head was swimming. _Okay, here's a pretty riddle: what does Oscorp have that Ock wants? And how the hell did he get out of SHEILD's hands? . . . And here I was having such a good day._

And for that matter, if the guy wasn't just lying about Doc Ock, why hadn't he seen anything on the news? SHEILD should've jumped on the chance to warn people about an escaped criminal. Unless, of course, asses had to be covered – which, really, would have made sense. This was a government organization Peter was thinking about, after all.

Peter had just gathered up his backpack and was ready to leave when suddenly his spider-sense buzzed him, hard. Letting instinct take over, Peter leapt off the roof of the building and to his left, back-flipping onto the wall opposite the one he had been clinging to. As usual when operating by his spider-sense, he acted not a moment too soon; there was a blinding flash of lightning and a simultaneous CRACK that deafened Peter, and the roof behind him exploded outward in a cloud of dust and shrapnel even as he jumped. Holding onto the opposite wall with only his feet, Peter cupped his arms over his head to protect himself as smoking pieces of brick struck him with enough force to be painful. In mere moments, the entire episode was over.

Peter stared at the smoking roof blankly, breathing hard and trying to piece his wits back together. His immediate response to the explosion was to assume he had been attacked, but when his spider-sense gave no further warnings and Peter's clearing vision revealed no suspects, he slowly realized that he had very nearly been the victim of a lightning strike.

_Just a lightning strike . . . sheesh, _just _a lightning strike?__ That was, like, fifty jillion times whatever Electro's thrown at me!_ Peter laughed nervously and tried to keep his teeth from chattering from shock. _Good God, that was the adrenaline rush from hell . . ._

There was another flash of lightning and a boom of thunder, and Peter jumped in reaction before taking a deep breath and climbing up the side of his new building perch to change.

. . . And then the heavens opened, and it began to pour.

Peter clung stubbornly to the building, gritting his teeth as his costume immediately froze to his skin, clinging in that uncomfortable way wet clothing had. There were worse things to be than soaking wet . . . such as on fire.

This was apparently what the lightning-struck building had decided to be.

There was a cry for help from inside the now-burning building. Peter groaned quietly, webbed his backpack to the wall, and leapt towards the inferno, telling himself that yes, the old Parker luck held, even when that particular Parker was in costume.

It was a very long night.


	2. One Sick Superhero

Chapter 1: One Sick Superhero

"Ah-ah . . . ah-TCHOO!"

MJ blinked and smiled. "That was quite a sneeze, Tiger. Have a Kleenex." She handed Peter a small box of tissues from her purse.

Peter grinned at Mary Jane through watery eyes, took a tissue, and blew his nose gratefully. "Thag oo," he said stuffily before sniffling loudly. "This is a miserable cold."

"Sure thing, Peter," MJ said conversationally as she put the tissue box away again. "It's been a while since you've been sick at all, hasn't it? Looks like you've finally decided to catch up on the seasonal bugs."

"Yeah . . ." Peter shrugged as he said it, waving goodbye to MJ as she headed off to Chemistry, but his eyes unfocused as he thought about it. It _had_ been a while since he'd been sick. While Peter had never been sickly, he'd always had allergies and, like most people, he caught a number of seasonal bugs each year. But since he'd been bitten by that spider, his allergies had disappeared (rather like his need for glasses; Aunt May was still trying to figure _that _miracle out) and he'd been perfectly healthy. Was that healthy streak just a fluke? Was he losing his powers or something?

As Peter walked into Physics, he touched the tips of his fingers to a wall tile and pulled; sure enough, the tile stuck securely to his fingers. He pulled it out of the wall with ease, even. Frowning slightly, he let the tile fall off his fingers into a wastebasket and sat down. _Well, it doesn't seem to have affected my powers at all. _He even smiled a little. _Honestly, why would getting spider-powers have anything to do with getting sick? It's not like a spider has any special power to repel viruses, or anything. I'm being stupid._

In fact, being sick probably followed logic. The night before Peter had saved about fifteen people from the burning building where he'd nearly been fried alive. The rain, refusing to be nice and let up, had kept coming down in torrents throughout the rescue but failed miserably to put out the flames. The only thing Peter could conclude was that the fire had been started by a gas line. The numerous trips inside the burning building dried Peter off a little, but the effect was canceled out by only a few seconds in the open.

After Peter had saved everyone who needed saving, he'd fashioned a makeshift tent out of the last of his webbing, warned the survivors that the tent would only last about an hour, and then returned to his backpack to find the contents just as sopping wet as his costume. Silently thankful that there was nothing of more value than his clothes in his bag, he'd roof-hopped most of the way back home in the pouring rain to the accompaniment of faraway thunder. Only when the rain began to let up a bit did Peter strip off his costume and change into his street clothes (his logic in taking off the costume being that wet T-shirts are more see-through than dry ones, and he didn't want to risk it once he was home), and then he continued leaping roofs (he figured no one could see him in the weather anyway). Once home he'd been appropriately admonished by his aunt May for being outside in such a thunderstorm before being lovingly bundled into a hot shower and given hot tea to drink.

The shivers hadn't really started until halfway through the night, and by morning Peter was sneezing for all he was worth. Aunt May 'tsk, tsk'ed, informed him he was lucky he only had a cold, and made him promise to drink his entire thermos of hot tea at lunch that day.

_You know, it's probably a pretty lame hero who gets sick from being out in the rain._ Peter barely kept his chuckle to himself. _Oh, well. Things could be a lot worse._

He sneezed.

Peter winced as he looked at the mangled remains of the combination lock on his locker. "Yikes . . ."

"What is it?" MJ looked over Peter's shoulder, smiling a little.

"Just a sneeze," Peter answered, holding up the lock for inspection and sniffling.

MJ thrust her Kleenex package at Peter. "Take it and keep it, for heaven's sake. 'Just' a sneeze?" She took the lock from Peter and whistled. "What did you do to it?"

"Well, you know how you kinda automatically lock up right before a sneeze?" Peter asked, grimacing and blowing his nose.

"Yeah . . . ?"

"I was holding the lock when I sneezed."

MJ gaped. "You freaking crushed it! You never told me that super-strength was—"

"Sshhh! Geez, MJ, don't – you know – what if Kong hears—"

"It's okay, Tiger," MJ interrupted, putting a finger to Peter's lips, smiling. Peter's heart did that little skip-skip thing it did sometimes when Mary Jane smiled like that. She leaned in conspiratorially. "But really – I didn't know you could do that!"

"I – well, I don't really think about it, I guess," Peter admitted. "I mean, I know I have strength proportional to a spider's, and I did the math, and I guess I should be able to lift about eight tons if I'm really trying. But it's so easy to control it just feels implicit. But then, when I _don't _quite have control over it, I do things like this," he pointed to the lock.

MJ rolled her eyes and rapped Peter on the forehead. "Dork. Only you'd do the math to calculate your own strength." Then she got serious. "Well, I dunno what to do about this. I mean, I don't think you can go to the office and tell them you crushed your combination lock, can you?"

"I could try telling them Kong did it," Peter suggested hopefully before sniffling.

"Nice try, Peter. Not even Kong's strong enough to do that." She studied the lock. "It looks like someone took a sledgehammer to it."

Peter groaned and blew his nose. "Don't remind me! I didn't ask for this!"

Mary Jane put a finger to her lips and seemed to pause to think. "Well, maybe you _could_ just tell them you crushed the lock . . . you've broken desks in half, after all . . ."

Again Peter groaned. "Please . . . I'm just lucky the school doesn't charge me for damaging school property." He sneezed violently again. "I'm willing to try anything, though. Uh, guess I'll see you next period?" he asked, glancing up at the clock.

"Sure, Tiger, see you there." MJ breezed by, blew Peter a kiss, and disappeared into the crowds.

Peter blushed and wandered off in the direction of the office, rehearsing his explanation absentmindedly. _You see, I came up to my locker and found the lock like this . . . I dunno how it happened . . ._

Luckily the administration wasn't too picky about the lock ("Good grief, kids these days . . . gotta cut down on the horsing around in the halls"), although they did take note of the amount of destruction that seemed to happen around Peter these days ("First desks, now locks . . . you're a walking disaster area"), prompting Peter to vow to himself that he would be extra careful about how he handled himself lest somebody put two and two together only moments before he nearly tore out a chunk of wall trying to cover his mouth for a sneeze.

The rest of the day followed much of the same pattern, although Peter successfully kept from causing further damage to school property, and by the end of the day he dreaded work at the Daily Bugle until he found himself mulling over Doctor Octopus' apparent escape from the Vault—

"Hey! Didja hear? SHEILD got on the news today and said that Doc Ock escaped from the Vault!"

Peter's head snapped around to stare at Flash and Kong before he caught himself and listened more discreetly.

"How'd you find that out?" Kong's voice was jovial.

"Current Events – the teacher turned on the TV and there was some agent girl talking about how we should all be on the lookout for him."

Peter could almost hear the grin Kong wore as he exclaimed, "Did you see that time on TV a couple months ago when Spider-Man—"

"Dude, that's all you ever talk about! Spider-Man this, Spider-Man that—"

"Well, can I help it if he's cool?"

From there the conversation dissolved into an argument about the coolness level of Spider-Man, at which Peter grinned and shook his head and sneezed again.

However, the grin faded when Peter considered the implications of recent developments. _So, the doc got out. I heard some government agency took him into custody, but – hmph. I wonder if the woman Flash saw on TV was that agent girl that tried to arrest me on the dock . . ._

"Hey, Pete, what're you thinking about so hard?"

Peter looked up at Mary Jane, and it wasn't hard to force a smile for her. "Nothing, really."

"Uh-huh." MJ gave him a disbelieving look, one eyebrow raised. "That's about as likely as you getting second place in the science fair."

Peter snorted, then sniffled. "Just some weird stuff going on – I'll tell you later, okay?" he added pointedly. Mary Jane caught on, nodding, and he stretched with a groan. "I'm achy . . ."

"Of course you are, you dork, you sounded like you were going to cough up a lung in class," Mary Jane remarked, rolling her eyes. "Hey, did you want me to just come home with you from school? I could use your help in chem, anyway."

It was tempting, Peter had to admit – time spent with MJ was priceless, and he didn't like to pass it up. But—"Actually, I was thinking I was gonna go out for a while, swing around town," he answered, jamming his hands in his pockets. "Check some stuff out. Has to do with the stuff I was, you know, thinking about."

The look Mary Jane gave him was a dubious one. "You think it's a good idea to 'swing around town' when you're sneezing like that?" she asked.

"Aw, come on, don't you start in too," Peter groaned. "Aunt May's bad enough! I just – it's important, okay? I promise I'll be careful. I'll call you as soon as I'm home and you can come over then, okay?" He offered MJ a placating look, one calculated to calm the nerves of any woman.

Unfortunately, he wasn't very good at placating nerves, evidently. "You make sure you call!" she said sharply. "Do you know how scared I was when I saw you on TV fighting Doctor Octopus?"

Peter started to interject – he'd only heard about it fifty bajillion times by then. _Note to self: Never fight on TV again. _"I know, I—"

But MJ cut him off. "You owe me big-time for that, Tiger, don't forget!"

Peter couldn't help the tiny grin from the nickname – he could really get used to that – before his breath caught, and suddenly, he was having a coughing fit. Catching his breath, he managed, "Okay, okay, you win – I mean, not that we were arguing or anything," he added, trying to work out how MJ had 'won' the conversation. "Just – I'm gonna tell Aunt May I'm at the _Bugle_, okay? Cover for me?"

MJ sighed and nodded. "You're crazy. If you're splatted on the sidewalk somewhere because you started coughing while you were jumping from a building, I'll kill you."

"If the sidewalk doesn't kill me first, you mean?" Peter offered weakly, then dodged MJ's incoming hand. "All right, all right, I'm going—see you later, okay—?" He jogged back up the school stairs, starting for the roof, and waved goodbye.

It was starting to turn into some sort of full-fledged head cold – Peter felt stuffed up and his nose was starting to run in earnest, and he was achy – achy enough that he half-dreaded web-swinging his way over to OsCorp labs to do some snooping. But if Doc Ock was up and about, he had to be on his toes – especially because he didn't know if Octavius knew who he was. _He obviously didn't have it figured out last time we fought, or – oh, man, I'm so lucky. If he'd gone and blurted my name or something that night – man, _everyone_ in the Tri-State area would've known who Spider-Man was!_ And then Aunt May would've been toast, and heck, probably MJ, too – the Kingpin probably still wanted his head on a platter, and the guy had just fled to the Bahamas while the heat was high. Peter couldn't help the shiver he had at the thought. _I've got to be more careful._

Which was why he was taking off his pants and t-shirt and struggling into his Spider-Man costume on the roof of the school right then – for once, he was going to pre-empt the bad guys and stop Doc Ock before he caused some real trouble.

Sliding his mask over his face, Peter sighed as he realized the material made breathing through his already stuffed-up nose impossible – he'd have to breathe through his mouth. He was going to be drinking a gallon of water by the time he got home, he'd be so dried out. But –"That'd be my luck," he snorted, slinging his backpack over his shoulders and shooting off a webline to a nearby building.

It was time to get to work.


	3. When the Going Gets Tough

Chapter 2: When the Going Gets Tough . . .

As it turned out, the trip to Oscorp Industrial wasn't as rough as MJ had feared it would be, but it left Peter breathless and a touch shaky. He missed snagging a webline once – but he did that once in a while anyway, so he chalked it up to usual mistake rather than any resurgence of his cold.

However, Oscorp's laboratory complex was a huge place. After webbing his backpack to a random rooftop, he took a gigantic leap from the nearest skyscraper and hurtled onto the roof of Oscorp Labs, peering over the edge of the twelve-story building. A few people were passing into the labs, and more were passing out; it was, after all, almost five o'clock.

"Okay, Spidey, you genius, you, what the hell did you expect to do here?" he muttered to himself as he yanked his mask up over his clogged nose, breathing a little faster than normal. His head was spinning a little, but worse, his limbs ached from the effort of web-swinging. He wasn't used to those kinds of muscle aches any more.

And now it seemed like he'd wasted his time, anyway. Doc Ock was having street thugs terrorize interns to get the keys to whichever particular lab he was looking for, so obviously he was trying to lay low; if he didn't particularly care either way, he could have just come and ripped the doors right off their hinges. So what was Peter doing standing here in his Spider-Man costume? Was he going to break into the labs and see what the doc was looking for? Was he going to follow every intern home every night to keep Ock from getting the keys? Or let one of the keys get stolen so he could follow the thugs back to Ock himself?

That last option was a really, really bad idea, Peter decided on further reflection. Not only was he not feeling quite up-to-speed (_understatement, Parker, _he thought), but letting Ock get that close to success just couldn't be a good idea no matter how terrific Peter was feeling. And it wasn't like he could keep up with every Oscorp employee 24-7 either, so option number two was out, too. Thirdly, his reputation was on the upswing at the moment, so Peter wasn't particularly eager to ruin it when he got caught snooping around the labs – presuming he found the correct lab to break into, and he could even figure out what chemicals were of interest to Doctor Octopus. Which left Peter back at the original problem: why was he here?

"See, Parker," he muttered to himself as he rolled his aching shoulders, "this is why you should think things out first. You're smart, you just don't ever use your darn—"

And then he felt that familiar cold tickle up his spine.

Acting purely on instinct, Spider-Man leapt straight up into the air with a yelp of surprise, yanking his mask back down over his face. An instant later, a tentacle had ploughed into the edge of the building right where Peter had been standing – and Peter twisted around in mid-air to see the face of Doc Ock, a mask of fury.

"You – why are you here--!?" Doctor Octopus demanded, and two of his tentacles dove after Spider-Man again. Peter noted in a vaguely detached manner that Ock had gotten back his fourth arm after Peter had ripped it off last time.

"W-Well – uh – I hear the tours are great," Spider-Man shot back as his feet touched the roof again, and he bounced skyward, narrowly escaping the first tentacle. The second he blocked with his hand, the impact jarring him to the teeth. "Anyway, I could ask the same of you— whoops! – last I heard, you were rotting behind bars!" He leaned back over the edge of the building as if doing the limbo and a metal arm zoomed over his head – but unfortunately, it left him wide open for the next hit, which swept his legs out from under him. Peter gave an alarmed shout as he hurtled backwards over the side of the building – his spider-sense went wild, and Spidey had the insane urge to snarl that yes, he _knew_ the dangers of falling 150 feet, spider-powers or no – and he reached out desperately for the wall of the building. His fingers just brushed the side, and instantly he could feel his fingers sticking; his hand stuck firmly, and his arm jerked taut as the trajectory of the rest of his body changed and he slammed knee-first into the wall. "Ow!" Peter grimaced, but there was no time for that. He coiled against the wall, looking up.

Doctor Octopus peered over the edge of the building just in time to get a face full of Spidey's fist, and he stumbled back, arms writhing around him, curling protectively. Peter, meanwhile, landed with a thump square on the roof, breathing hard, something in his throat threatening to catch and turn into another coughing fit. He grit his teeth against the possibility.

Doc Ock was rubbing his face, but his glare turned onto Spider-Man sharply. "Child, I have no time for you," he hissed, and suddenly all four tentacles were diving at the wall-crawler at once.

"Oh, like I have time for you? Trust me – yikes! – we'd both be much happier – woah – happier – if you'd just stayed in jail, since obviously I don't put you in a good mood."

He could feel that he was moving slower than usual, and it was not a comfortable feeling. Peter twisted away from one tentacle, planted a foot on another to push off out of the path of a third, ducked the fourth, rolled across the ground, leapt up and away from the first tentacle again – and was beaned by the third across the back of his head. Off-balance, Spider-Man toppled forward onto another tentacle, which more or less upper-cut Peter and sent him sprawling across the roof.

Suddenly, there was no holding back the urge to cough, and cough he did, hard enough to make himself need to curl up against his knees as they wracked his body.

So it was that he felt the danger coming but couldn't do much about it, when the doctor slammed two tentacles upside his head and the world went a strangely blissful black.

Peter woke up to screaming – or at least, that's what it sounded like to him at first, his head still spinning from his forced unconsciousness. A couple of moments of laying there on his side, blinking, restored him enough to distinguish that the sound was the whine of engines overhead – helicopters, and one of those new nifty planes that landed vertically.

With a groan Peter sat up, rubbing the side of his head. Right now, right here, was definitely not a good place to be, he judged, and he struggled to his feet. Everything ached far more than before, and Peter could feel a sneeze coming on. He hid it as well as he could, pulling his mask away from his face as he did so. The last thing he needed was gunk on the inside of his mask – it was trouble enough to deal with washing it without Aunt May finding out.

Two things were immediately determinable; Doc Ock was no longer present, and the police were now on the scene, which meant he had busted in after all and probably already retrieved whatever chemical it was that he had been looking for. Great, wonderful, exactly what he needed. Peter kicked himself mentally and wondered if anyone had died – who he'd let down – and more selfishly, he made a bet with himself that he'd get blamed for the whole thing. Good press or not, it wouldn't have been the first time his ass had been handed to the dogs to cover someone else's.

It wasn't dark, but the sun was low on the horizon, and Peter had to shield his eyes and stick himself to the ground as two of the helicopters started to land nearly simultaneously on the roof. Yep, it definitely said 'Police' on the sides of those helicopters – time to beat it. He spun away, and his head immediately informed him that had not been the best of ideas. He staggered.

"Spider-Man! Stop!"

"Put up your hands!"

"Stay where you are!"

Spider-Man, of course, had no intentions of following the orders of the police, and slowly crawled over the edge of the roof and down the wall to give himself a clear shot for his webline to a nearby building. But he paused at the third voice – he knew that voice. Twisting his head around to look up, he saw dark sunglasses and whipping red hair. It was the SHIELD agent.

"Hey!" Peter shouted over the roar of the 'copters. "If you're here, does that mean you admit Doc Ock showed up?"

"No comment!" the agent shouted back. "Come up here so we can talk!"

"'Talk', right," Peter shook his head with a snort. "I've got better things to be doing than going to jail! Don't you have better things to do than arrest me, like chase down the guy with the bad haircut and four huge, waving arms!? He can't be that hard to find, you know, he's the last guy with a bowl cut in the City! And, y'know, the arms. Dead giveaway."

"You! Mutant!"

Both Spider-Man and the SHIELD agent turned to stare at the wide-eyed policeman who suddenly appeared over the edge of the roof, his gun trained on Spidey. "Get up here right now! Right now!" His voice shook just slightly.

"Pushy, aren't we?" Peter muttered to himself, shaking his head slightly. The 'copters were starting to make his headache worse; he had to get going, anyway, before things went from bad to worse. "Sorry, Slappy, but I don't think it's fair for you to have to spend all your time on little ol' me," he started, just as the SHEILD agent snarled, "Get back, rookie, I'll deal with this one!"

But the cop was clearly acting more on his fears than on orders, and it was a lucky thing Peter had had minor precognition. He squeezed the trigger; Spider-Man let out a startled whoop and somersaulted off the wall spectacularly for someone who was dodging a bullet. As he entered free-fall, he shot off a webline and swung away. "It's been fun!" he shouted hoarsely at the agent, but if she heard him, she didn't react, all her attention on the rookie cop, who probably had just seen his entire career as an officer go down the toilet.

Sore and tired as he was, and always on the verge of coughing, Peter put everything but web-swinging out of his mind as he started for home; despite his flippant remark to Mary Jane, he certainly had no intention of splatting on the sidewalk, or anywhere else, for that matter. The sun was setting when he got back into Forest Hills, and he slipped into his street clothes and, after finally letting himself cough for all he was worth, he shuffled up the street from the direction of the bus stop.

As it turned out, his show was wasted – Aunt May wasn't home. She'd gone to some town hall meeting up the street, evidently, according to her note – and warned Peter to have something warm to eat. Peter was a little ashamed of himself when the discovery filled him with a sort of relief; his jaw had swollen some from the impact he'd taken, and he wasn't totally sure Aunt May would buy that it was swollen lymph nodes. Grabbing a bag of frozen vegetables from the fridge, he nestled it between his jaw and shoulder in hopes it would reduce the swelling and poured himself a bowl of cereal – for some reason, chicken noodle soup just wasn't appealing to him at the moment. After grabbing the remote phone and turning the TV to News Channel 5, he flopped down on the couch, took a couple of mouthfuls of Lucky Charms, and, with his eyes glued to the TV, he called MJ.

"Hello?"

Peter was envious of Mary Jane for having her own phone line in her room. _One of these days, with my vast reserves of money, I'll buy myself a cell phone. _"Hey, MJ! It's Peter."

"Hey, Pete!" Mary Jane's voice was full of relief, and Peter felt a twinge of guilt. Sure, telling her his secret had kept him from hurting her feelings, but was it really fair to her to let her worry about him every time she saw a news flash on TV? "Are you doing okay? What's going on? I just saw something on TV about the Oscorp labs getting robbed—"

"Yeah, yeah, they're playing it again on channel 5," Peter answered, turning up the volume on the TV. "Hang on a sec."

"—Corp laboratory complex was ransacked, and some chemicals, only described as 'highly valuble', were stolen. We have been unable to speak to the laboratory scientists, but fourteen individuals were injured, and two are in critical care. Chief Stacy had this to say about the incident:

"'We don't know for sure who's responsible yet,'" Chief Stacy said, standing in front of the labs and a number of cop cars. "'Witnesses are still half-mad with shock. We'll see.'"

The scene then switched back over to the anchorwoman. "When asked whether rumors that Spider-Man was on the scene were true, or whether the incident might be related to the recent escape of Doctor Otto Octavius – a former Oscorp employee – from custody, he only said, 'No comment'.

"In other news—"

Peter sighed, muting the TV again. "At least I'm not getting blamed for this one yet." _Fourteen people wounded, and two might die, because I couldn't get my act together fast enough. Crap! Yep, some superhero I am._

"What happened, Pete?" MJ sounded worried.

"It's – well, it's kind of a long story." Peter narrowed his eyes at the television. "Can you come over?"

"Mm, I'll have to ask my Mom. We're having dinner soon."

"Hey, don't pass that up, your mom's cooking rocks," Peter pointed out. "Unless, you know, you'd rather share my Lucky Charms." He paused. "I didn't mean it quite that suggestively, though."

But Mary just laughed, and Peter liked that sound, even over the phone. "I know what you meant. Look, I'll eat as fast as I can, then tell Mom I needed help with chem."

"Which is true," Peter pointed out, winding up for a sneeze.

"Yeah, but don't think for a second I'm going to let you tutor me until you've explained to me what happened!" MJ informed him crisply as Peter sneezed.

"Okay, okay," Peter grinned, sniffling. It was funny, he thought, that sore, tired, achy, and stuffed-up as he felt, talking to MJ could make him feel 100 percent better. "Come over soon."

"I will. Oh, and take some cough syrup or something, okay? I feel bad for you, and I don't want to catch your cold," she added teasingly.

"Yeah, I don't want you to catch my cold, either," Peter answered with a slightly annoyed air. He'd have to wait until this virus passed before he dared kiss Mary again. "See you soon?"

"Yep. Don't work too hard, okay? Bye!"  
"Bye." Peter turned off the phone, and went to the medicine cabinet for some cough syrup, then checked his jaw. Better than before. He downed the syrup and put the vegetables away, and ate his way through two more bowls of cereal while he watched the news for any further information. Nothing, nothing, the Sentinels had been ruled unconstitutional or something like that, another warning that Ock was on the loose and keep your eyes peeled, don't be a hero if you see him (Peter choked on his cereal), just call the police, and some special about talking to dolphins. Boring.

Peter turned off the TV and started downstairs to his 'lab', dragging his backpack with him. Was this going to always be some kind of pattern with him? Get spanked at the beginning of the conspiracy, go through the drama associated, then finally stop the bad-guy at the last minute? Because it was getting irritating.

Besides, when he got spanked, he wasn't the only person getting spanked. Fourteen people hurt, and he'd been right there, sleeping like a baby. It was his fault by association; he knew he couldn't always be there, but when he was, he should be doing something other than getting knocked cold.

Well, MJ was coming over, so he figured he should do his separate homework first. He spread his Physics homework out in front of him . . . and spent fifteen minutes staring at it blankly, his mind elsewhere.

Firstly, after taking so much care to not be caught for at least a few days, evidently, why did Doc Ock suddenly show up and just take what he wanted? Well, that was a riddle easily solved – SHIELD had kept quiet about his escape up until that afternoon, but the moment they released the information, there was no reason to lay low any more. After all, Peter was relatively sure that he was the only person in Manhattan who could take on Ock with reasonable certainty that he would have a chance at winning – now that Spider-Man knew Ock was free, there was no reason to hide any more. It was weird, Peter thought, to think that he might have been the only reason Ock was hiding at all. But maybe he was giving himself too much credit. _I mean, if Iron Man deigned to deal with these guys, that would also be bad news for Ock._ Maybe he was hiding from higher-powered superheroes – but now he was just being frivolous. For whatever reason, Doctor Octopus was done hiding. Peter put the matter aside.

What did Ock want from the chemical labs? As far as Peter had been able to tell, the last time Ock had been running around free he'd been trying to get revenge on Hammer for 'making him into the monster he was'. Now Hammer was dead, so what did Octavius want out of life?

_Okay, Parker, maybe you're getting ahead of yourself, trying to get inside the mind of a madman. Let's review the facts, shall we?_

The facts were that Octavius thought that Hammer was the one responsible for having his arms welded onto his body. Why would he think that? Peter reviewed the last time he'd fought Doc Ock; hadn't Ock said something about Spider-Man being one of Hammer's homemade soldiers? Maybe . . . maybe Hammer had been giving normal people weird powers like his own. Or tampering with mutants? Peter rubbed his temples and growled under his breath. He wouldn't put it past the creep.

But the truth was Ock had gotten those arms from Oscorp labs, in an explosion only a few weeks after Peter had gotten bitten by that spider. He remembered seeing the arms at the Oscorp labs. So, why did Octavius blame Hammer?

He had to have lost some portion of his memory, Peter decided – but he already knew that. Doc Ock would've known Spider-Man and Peter Parker were one and the same if he hadn't. But how did Ock know about whatever secret experiments on humans Hammer had been conducting in the first place? He'd been working for Oscorp, so what would he know about Hammer Industries?

So ' none of this helped Peter get any closer to figuring out why Ock was stealing chemicals from high security Oscorp labs. With a sigh, Peter wrenched his mind from the issue. Ock obviously didn't know who he was still, so that was his main fear dealt with. Now all he could do was wait for the madman to reappear – and get his homework done in the meantime.

"Okay . . ." Mary tapped the first page of her homework, then glanced up at Peter. "You okay, Tiger?"

Peter's face had gone distant again, and he wrenched his eyes back to Mary Jane. "Oh, yeah, you know . . . just . . . what would he want from Oscorp?" He scowled down at his own chemistry homework, grabbing a Kleenex and blowing his nose. "If Ock comes back big, green, and ugly – I mean, uglier – I quit."

MJ laughed softly, but with a twinge of sadness. Harry had claimed the huge monster that had attacked their school was his dad, and evidently Peter agreed that the creature was some mutated form of the former head of Oscorp. And the problem at hand was really eating at him – it seemed like he'd thought of nothing else all day. "Hey, look at me," she said, touching her hand to the side of Peter's face and turning his head towards her. "You can't worry about that now, okay? You said it yourself – you don't know what's going on, and you'll just have to wait and find out. You can't worry about it." She smiled her best reassuring smile, and part of her wondered what it would be like to be married to Peter Parker, otherwise known as Spider-Man. Would she be comforting him all the time like this? It was worth it, she decided, for the grateful look he sent her way. He was so cute – even with the cold-induced dark circles under his eyes and the swollen jaw.

"Thanks, Mary," he said softly, and gave her a one-armed hug as his eyes swore this wasn't just some passing crush – this was real – and MJ shivered, a smile on her face. She _loved _that look. "So, um, right, chem." His eyes swung back to her notebook. "The teacher was talking about balancing the reaction, remember? Well, sometimes it doesn't balance exactly right, so you get side products, like water and carbon dioxide. But you have to have the right number of each element to produce the main product on the other side." He did the first problem for her, walking her through each step. "Get it?"

"It always makes sense when other people do it," Mary pointed out. "Then I try to do it myself and it just doesn't. Give me an English paper any day, I suck at science."

"You do not – you suck at _math_," Peter corrected authoritatively, and laughed when she slugged him in the shoulder, before coughing a bit. "Okay, okay, geez. Violent."

"Yeah? Well, you wouldn't be laughing if I'd been bitten too, now would you?" Mary teased.

"Oh, come on, you _don't _want my problems," Peter informed her.

"I already _do _have your problems, Pete," she answered, and it must have out more sorrowfully than she meant it to, because Peter's gaze dropped.

"I'm sorry, MJ, I know," he mumbled. "Man . . . just . . . I wish I could, you know, kiss you," he blurted, and his cheeks reddened. "But I've got this cold! And sometimes . . . I kinda wish I hadn't told you. Because – I . . . I don't want you to be scared all the time about me. You should be worrying about yourself, not me."

Mary bit her lip, and reached out to cover Peter's hand with her own. "You know, sometimes I wish you hadn't told me, too," she said softly. "Because I thought it'd be, y'know, fun to see you on TV fighting badguys and knowing that that's my boyfriend. But it _is_ scary." She sighed. "But . . . I'm glad, too." She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back firmly. "I wouldn't wanna be left out of the loop on something like this. It's . . . something special." She grinned. "Our special little secret. And I'm glad that I can help, too."

Peter's smile was relieved and excited at the same time, and she felt her own heart lift. "Thank you, Mary Jane," he said fervently. "Thank you – I – I'll kiss you for it as soon as I'm over this stupid cold!"

"Thanks, Tiger," Mary answered, placing a finger over his lips. "Now. Let me do the next problem, and you tell me if I did it right, okay?"


End file.
